Process or talent? Companies can’t focus on both…

“The Most Important Document to ever come out of Silicon Valley” was released last week… at least, that’s what Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg called it. This Most Important Document wasn’t a cutting-edge business plan, or a product roadmap… Far from it. It was Netflix’s “Corporate Culture” guidelines, a document that is usually quite dry and boring.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings authored much more than your typical “Respect your employees, treat your customers well” boilerplate: He created a manifesto about how companies should grow, how to trust and empower employees, and how a talent-based company should work in the twenty-first century.

One of the most key points in the presentation is a discussion of organizational growth, detailing how large organizations typically start out being talent-based and talent-driven. As these organizations grow and become more complex they shift, becoming process-driven and paralyzed with rules and regulations. This, Hastings states, drives the talented people out and thus when the marketplace changes the company loses its competitive edge (s process can’t respond to a paradigm shift in an industry, but talented people can). How Hastings staffs and grows Netflix is the opposite of that model – he continues to focus on acquiring and keeping the best talent he can possibly find, paying them more than the market rate to keep them engaged and motivated.

This key point is presented matter-of-factly, with no doubt or ambiguity. And when you read it, it’s obvious and exactly right: you can see how institutional processes have hampered and hamstrung major companies over the past few decades (Microsoft, I’m looking in your direction).

Not to say that I want to go to work for Netflix, but after reading this document they are precisely the type of company I want to align my fortunes with – an organization that values talent above process, that lets professionals be professionals.

This article also made me consider my approach to user experience design. In the past I have been very pro-process, but recently I’ve come around to a completely different opinion. UX design is a creative effort, and a good UX designer needs to be versed in a dozen different domains (technical, psychological, commercial, you name it). There’s plenty of people who put “UX” in front of their names, but many of them are developers or graphic designers in disguise. You can have the best design process in the world, but if you don’t have talented people in the right roles working at their best… well, the results will speak for themselves (again, I cast a glance towards Redmond).

Finally, I’ve been very frustrated in my present job of late, and this Netflix presentation gave me a clear perspective on why. The processes and org charts and silos at the company are completely hampering my ability to do my job. I can’t make an impact, can’t “make a dent in the universe” as Steve Jobs famously said. At this company, talent is not important; process is king…. even if the processes put in place make things worse.

I’ve outgrown it.

What happens next… well, who knows? I have some very ambitious goals, both professionally and personally, and I’m looking to go somewhere and work for people who appreciate and support such goals.

Joseph Dickerson

Joseph Dickerson is a user experience professional and UX Lead for Microsoft based out of Atlanta, GA. He has implemented processes in user testing, design and ethnographic research and provided design and consulting services for many different projects and organizations.